Decision Point
by 90TheGeneral09
Summary: Based off Stephen King's novella "The Mist". The two soldiers on leave in Bridgton, Maine have been trapped in the Federal Foods market for 6 hours. The locals are getting restless- and not just the monsters outside in the mist. Realising they won't be ignored for much longer, the two soldiers decide to face the truth their own way.
1. Chapter 1- Under Siege

**Chapter I- Under Siege**

* * *

Private First Class Dylan Drake ran a hand through his sandy-blonde, buzz-cut hair, sighing nervously as he leaned up against the wall, near the beer coolers at the back of the store. He'd stayed back here the entire time since the mist had come, just as his friend, Corporal Charlie Zamorro, had done. They'd moved out of the way when those men had come towards the store-room in the back, and neither soldier had said anything when that bag-boy who joined them back there didn't return. Zamorro had just shrugged, a little sadly- it didn't matter. There was nothing either of them could do.

Their inaction held when the leading personalities of the Federal Foods market had gathered everyone in the back, and the store manager- a guy called Bud Brown, Drake recalled- confirmed that they were in a situation of some magnitude. That brought a bitter laugh from Zamorro, who only just managed to cover his mouth and move off towards the baby food aisle of the store. He kept up that quiet, crazy laughter even after the two soldiers were alone, and Drake had looked at him with real concern. Zamorro just shook his head, waving him off. "Oh, Christ, Drake," he said, bitter but somehow still amused. "They're just figuring it out. They don't even know they're dead yet."

Drake and Zamorro were security personnel at Fort Baxter, a remote and obscure Army post out past the nearby town of Shaymore. It was over an hour away from Bridgton, but when the mist had started rolling out of Fort Baxter- it had probably begun yesterday, and the problem, whatever it was, had probably been worsened by the storm- an hour had not been far enough.

Drake was eighteen to Zamorro's twenty-two, and while a competent soldier, Drake knew there were things he wasn't able to understand. He relied on Zamorro almost constantly to help him make sense of things- not the little things, like how to service a Humvee's transmission or break down a .50 cal- but the big things, like what in the hell had gone wrong with the Arrowhead Project and why they were trapped in a grocery store right now.

Zamorro had initially tried to avoid Drake's questions, constantly looking up and down the aisle they were on to make sure nobody else could hear. Finally, he gave up, and an hour before dark had told Drake what he knew.

"Fort Baxter is a testing range; it's a base for experiments," he'd said quietly. "You know that, right?"

"Yeah," Drake said, feeling more than a little nervous. He'd heard the talk about Fort Baxter, knew that the soldiers on-base and the civilians nearby all had their rumors about the Arrowhead Project and what it was.

"Well," Zamorro went on cautiously, "There was this one time. I was on guard outside of Test Bunker Five, way downrange. Somebody forgot to lock the door I was guarding. I went inside- just looked around for a minute. Lots of papers, drawings, weird fuckin' machinery… all I could figure out was, they were tryin' to go somewhere."

Drake stared, stunned beyond words. He had to try several times before finally speaking. "W-what do you mean, 'go somewhere'?"

Zamorro just shook his head, impatient. "I don't understand it myself, Drake. I'm a fuckin' MP, not a scientist. But I'm tellin' you- I saw some strange shit in there."

Pointing off towards the front of the store- and past that, through several miles of mist-shrouded Maine to whatever was left of the Fort Baxter testing facility- Zamorro again glanced left and right, making sure no one was nearby as he crouched on Aisle 9 with his friend and fellow MP. As he pointed off in the distance, Zamorro said in a low, deadly serious voice, "You think this shit has nothin' to do with that base we work- worked- at?"

Drake desperately wanted to give an answer in the affirmative, but ultimately shook his head. "No, man."

Zamorro nodded. "Yeah. They were doin' some strange and powerful shit up there, Drake. I don't know just what, but I'm sure it caused all this."

"Yeah," Drake said quietly, feeling himself slowly regressing into the mental state of a twelve-year-old. "I bet it did."

The two soldiers were both dressed in the Army work uniform of the late 70's- standard olive drab, little different from what their older brothers had worn in Korea and their fathers in World War II. Zamorro paused, setting a hand on the two black stripes on his right arm. "How much you wanna bet there ain't gonna be an Army to have stripes in by the end of the week?"

Drake had been afraid ever since the mist had rolled in about seven hours ago. He'd heard the commotion up at the front of the store- listened as the first people rushed out into the mist- and not one of them came back. Drake had been afraid before, but now, somewhere deep in his mind, he heard a whisper of a nameless fear, too big to comprehend.

Quietly, Drake cleared his throat. "Maybe we oughta help, man. Maybe we can help 'em…" he just trailed off upon seeing the look on the older soldier's face.

"And who would wanna listen to us?" he asked, glaring at a pair of summer tourists passing by as they orbited the store. "We couldn't tell them anything useful without telling them we knew something about the Project. If we told 'em we came from that base- and I bet you some of these guys probably know that already- they'd think it was our fault."

As usual, Zamorro was right. Drake quieted down, and for quite some time neither of them spoke. They just sat down across the aisle from each other, staring at the white tiled floor of the Federal, at the white ceiling, and now and then at each other. Before long, though, each man gave that last one up- the haunted, guilty look they each saw in the other's eyes- it was unsettling. Very much so. Each soldier saw something he didn't like- and knew it was all the worse because he was really just looking in the mirror, at himself.

Finally, Zamorro got up and walked off, assuring Drake he'd be back. As the dark-haired soldier headed for the utilities and outdoor supplies aisle- 15 if he had it right- he thought with a little amusement of how childish Drake could be. He wasn't exactly the brightest bulb of the lot, and he was so loyal to Zamorro it was ridiculous sometimes. He got rattled if officers asked him too many questions, and in times of crisis generally just did whatever it was Zamorro did.

Quietly, as he found what he was looking for- a length of household rope, neither too thick nor too thin- Zamorro hoped Drake's loyalty to him would hold up this one time he really needed it too. Drake was scared, and so was Zamorro- and he knew they couldn't just hide out in this store forever. They were the only two wearing olive drab, and sooner or later these shell-shocked, panicked civilians would start looking to blame. Nobody would make a better target than Private First Class Dylan Drake and Corporal Charlie Zamorro, and the latter grimly understood that no one- absolutely no one- would care if PFC Drake was a good kid and a loyal friend, one who had no real understanding of the Arrowhead Project at all. Zamorro, however, understood he shared a little more of the guilt. He'd had an idea of what was going on- in a sense, he had lied to Drake earlier.

The testing room he saw had a big, huge cylinder in the center, a massive tank with glass panels so the scientists and Army and Air Force officials could see in. Diagrams, schematics, progress logs- in just a minute or two of hurried looking, Zamorro had read over many of them.

They'd been trying to go somewhere, all right.

It looked like they'd done it.

Maybe that was the original plan- just to use some high-level, no-doubt-experimental technology to open a door. Just have a look, take a peek- and maybe see if entry to what was on the other side could be done safely. Yes, maybe that had been the original plan, but something had gone disastrously wrong.

Zamorro imagined, briefly, that last night's immensely powerful electrical storm probably had something to do with it. Equipment like he'd seen in that room was fine, no doubt, if kept tightly controlled by men who absolutely knew what they were doing. But add an asskicker of a storm into the picture, and a million things could happen. And from what Zamorro knew, from what he could guess, at what the goal of the Arrowhead Project had been… one bolt, one screw, getting knocked loose could mean one hell of a big mess.

_Yes_, Zamorro nodded to himself as he walked back to Aisle 9, _We'd better make a choice soon_.


	2. Chapter 2- Other Sins

**Chapter II- Other Sins**

* * *

Corporal Charlie Zamorro sat down next to his friend, PFC Dylan Drake, still holding the length of rope. They sat in silence for a few more moments, Zamorro not saying what he'd gone to get and Drake not asking.

Finally, Zamorro spoke. "Pretty soon these people are gonna start asking questions, you know. Questions you and me aren't gonna want to answer."

"Yeah."

Actually, that was something of a lie- Zamorro knew they were asking questions already. For the time being, luck was on the side of the two soldiers- everybody in the Federal seemed to have forgotten they were even there. But nightfall had come unusually quick with the shrouding, darkening effects of the mist. Zamorro knew the civilians' fortunate memory lapse would not last indefinitely.

"Well," Zamorro said quietly, "What do you think of our chances of getting out there? Think we could get to my Trailduster before whatever's out there got us? We don't even have our weapons, man. We're no better armed than these civvies."

Drake nodded, looking a little sick. He knew the score, all right.

Zamorro stood up, looking down at his friend. "Come on," he said. "Let's head to the back."

Once they were in the dark of the shipping-and-receiving room in the back of the store, the two soldiers talked it out. Zamorro, not mincing words, pointed out the two options he could see, one only somewhat less painless than the other, and a third- stay in the store and talk to the civilians- likely to have a worse outcome still.

Drake kept running his hands through his hair, a ridiculous gesture when there was so little of it. Over and over, his face written with fear, he kept saying, "We need to think about what we need to do."

Eventually, Zamorro just took him by the shoulders and pointed up at the heating pipes and corded wires hanging from the ceiling, some low enough to reach if you stood on a couple of boxes or crates.

Low enough for a man to hang himself from.

Drake, seeing that, just shook his head, blinking furiously as if fighting back tears. Looking at Zamorro in the dark, he said, "N-no, man. I-we- there's gotta be another way…"

"Like what?" Zamorro asked, his voice flat. There was no other way, and Zamorro knew he had to convince Drake of it.

"There's nothing we can do to help these people, Drake," Zamorro went on, his voice taking a softer note. "They'll say we've done enough already. They won't want our help."

Drake considered that, and even in the near-total blackness of the room, Zamorro could tell he was thinking about it. "Yeah," he said finally, sounding terribly sad. "I guess you're right."

"You guess or you know?"

Drake paused, then nodded, clearing his throat and strengthening his voice a little. "I know. You're right."

They spent a couple minutes getting ready, neither of them speaking- they found some plastic crates, stacked up a few empty ones below a nice, thick length of wire. Then Zamorro brought out the rope, produced a field knife in his pocket and cut two lengths of it. He handed one to Drake, then turned around. "Tie my hands," Zamorro said, and though visibly confused at the instruction, Drake did so.

Then Zamorro told Drake to turn around, and with some difficulty used his own bound hands to tie up Drake's. Each soldier stepped through his own arms so his hands were once again behind him, then slowly stood on one of the stacks of crates.

They set their necks through the slack in the wire; Zamorro had tested it, and those strong steel bolts would keep it on the ceiling, even with the weight of two men added to it.

"I wonder if McCallister made it out; him and Culkin," Drake said, his voice distant. Airman First Class Billy McCallister and Airman Michael Culkin were two Air Force Security Forces men stationed at Fort Baxter; they had been some of Drake and Zamorro's best friends. They had also been scheduled to come on duty today, early in the morning.

"Maybe they did," Zamorro said, praying his voice sounded appropriately hopeful. He needed to be truthful with Drake- sometimes brutally so. But he'd told the truth as much as it needed to be told; Drake was convinced he and Zamorro were only doing what they had to do. But Drake was taking heart now, thinking with hope of the chance that his Air Force buddies might have escaped the mist. Zamorro thought about telling him the truth- that, far more likely than not, McCallister and Culkin had not only died, but died horribly. Whatever was going on out there in the mist, they'd been on base when it started. And, like good soldiers, they had probably stood their ground and tried to stop it.

Yes; Zamorro knew. Those two were dead. But he couldn't bring himself to say it. He couldn't let Drake die without hope. And, hell- maybe _he_, Charlie Zamorro, needed a little goddamn hope himself.

"You know those zoomies always make it out okay," Zamorro added with a bit of a smile, and Drake laughed a little. It was fleeting, though, and both men soon turned grim.

"Okay," Zamorro said, "On three. We'll kick off the crates and do it."

"Okay," Drake said, his voice a little shaky.

Zamorro steadied himself; his heart was pounding. Fear raced through him, as did a last-second urge to back down and not go through with it.

Drake's breathing had gone ragged, and it was clear he was thinking similar things. "I-I don't know if I can do this," he said hesitantly.

"Sure you can. We both can," Zamorro said, surprised at the confidence in his voice. "If we want it bad enough."

A pause; it could have been as much as a minute or as little as a few seconds. Zamorro couldn't tell. Finally, he turned his head forward again.

"Remember to tilt your head sideways once you jump," he said. "That'll pull the cord tighter. It'll go faster that way."

Drake nodded, cleared his throat. "Got it," he said.

"Okay," Zamorro said, steeling himself. "On three. One!"

Drake suddenly joined in, and they chanted together.

"Two!"

"_Three_!"

The topmost crates on the two stacks crashed to the floor suddenly, a sound that went unnoticed and unheard by the others in the Federal because the doors to the stock-room were closed. Perhaps the things slithering over the loading dock doors, seeking a way in could hear- but they would only have known bitter disappointment that food was quite literally dangling before it and yet out of reach.

Zamorro spent what little time he had left hoping his ignorance- his inability to stop the Project he'd guarded from going so horribly wrong- was indeed some kind of excuse. Briefly his mind showed him horrible things- visions of the mist rolling across Maine, into Canada, down the East Coast and far across the Atlantic… and Zamorro rejected them. He set his last thoughts on a prayer- a prayer that men smarter than him, braver than him, would find a way to fix what the boys at Fort Baxter had started.

And that God would forgive them- him- for starting it.

Drake, in his last thoughts, was grateful for having somebody like Charlie Zamorro with him at the end. He was also thankful his friend had been right.

It didn't take long.


End file.
